If you have to take anti-depressant medication I would urge caution as to what you take. Get the very best advice you can find before committing to anything. Realise that they are not a quick fix - it will take time and they should be used in conjunction with other therapies. Above all else, try to look at them as only a plaster cast that will help the 'break' in your mind to heal and be removed when it is.

There is no woman out there who has gone through the life changing and shit scary ordeal of bringing a tiny human, kicking and screaming into the world that can hand on heart say they have not thought at least once that they are losing their mind whether it be the result of one of "those" days or the early signs of post natal illness.

Sad news this week of two City bankers who committed suicide, both in the prime of their lives. We have all visited that dark place where we have contemplated whether life continues to be worth living. Just this week, a friend send me a plaintive message that read something like this: 'life, job, love, all suck'.

I've been reading various blogs surrounding this issue with interest. As far as I understand, the doctor had sectioned this man several times in the past against his will. However on this occasion, he had apparently escaped during a consultation.

hose who cringe at the S-word I suspect would eventually discover its successor (probably from reading the Daily Mail), and react similarly to the new name. I doubt changing in the terminology would improve their attitudes. Bigots are bigots.

I haven't met many people with mental health problems who aren't in some way or other creative, we naturally question everything, perhaps to obsessiveness sometimes, and spiral off in different directions looking for alternative conclusions, very much like the artist's mind.

Know somebody that you just cannot get on with? Does their behaviour irritate and confuse you? Are they generally a massive pain in the distal digestive tract? There is always the possibility that they have a personality disorder. If, however, everybody you know seems like this... maybe you do!

One stormy morning, as lightening flickered behind our gloomy building, I found myself dealing simultaneously with an absconded patient, a gentleman who had been dealt an overdose of heroin, someone waving a Samurai sword in the Casualty department and my bleep incessantly singing out of tune. Where was my herbal tea and Freud wallpaper?